Hola!

Hey there family and friends! All your prayers have made a huge difference! Something that we have been praying for and working towards for the whole time that we have been here has been getting our investigators out to church. Last week we had success, and we had success again this week! And this time it was Karina! Karina is an elect daughter of God. Holy Cow. We have had some amazing experiences as we have taught her. Well really we don't have to do any teaching since she reads the pamphlet, and then we come and before we get the chance to teach anything she is already teaching it to us.

The true miracle this week though was that she and Zulma and the whole family came to an activity that we had on Saturday! When they got there things were still being set up and the food was still being prepared. But that didn't matter to them. René (Karina's husband) and Cornelio (family friend who lives with them) both immediately began to help set up tables and chairs, and without us knowing Karina jumped into the kitchen where no one spoke Spanish and she really doesn't know English at all, and she began to help. The sisters loved her! They were bragging about how amazing she was in the kitchen the whole time! That made us feel sooo good that she was accepted immediately. And I have to say that she really is a great cook. We ate with her twice this week. The first time we ate empanadas, and then yesterday we ate turtle! I'll show the pictures later.

After having such a good experience at the activity we were super anxious to see if René and Cornelio would come to church. They did! And we had the best Gospel Principles class that we have ever had! We had a class of 9 people and we were missing some of the usual participants! Yesterday we were pleased to hear that René and Cornelio are planning on coming again! We are hopefully going to start to teach them this week. :)

One thing that I learned this week that has made a huge impact on how I do missionary work is what the work urgency means.

In the NCRM we have a card called Super Trust, and one of the points of Super Trust says, "As representatives of Jesus Christ and His church, we have a sense of urgency to share the message of the restoration and the atonement, which will change people's lives." When we have the light of the gospel to be able to truly see who people are, it becomes very easy to converse with them. It brings down many barriers that would normally keep us from connecting with others. But even then we get stuck in what President Bernhisel calls "chummy talk." If we talk for 30 minutes with someone and get to know them and become their friend, then that is great! However, as missionaries we have been called to something else. We do need to get to know people, so we may be a source of light with the gospel. If we do not have the desire in our hearts to know someone, and know their hearts, and then to share truth that can touch their heart, then we will never get to it!

That's what urgency is. Getting to the point. Jumping right into teaching the gospel. Don't hesitate! And as we have tried to do that this week, our lessons have gone so much better and have been filled with the spirit.
I know that the gospel is what will bless the lives of everyone more than anything else! I am so grateful for it.

I love you all! And I hope you enjoyed your memorial day weekend as much as I did! :D

Les quiero,

Elder Johnson

At the activity: Kamila, René jr, Elder Swinney, Cornelio, Me

René (left) and friend killing the 2nd turtle :D

don't worry, this was the least gruesome picture

Here she is...

Now here's the taste testing...

Results?

Not so good... :)

Milagro!

This last week was super great! We have been seeing some great progress in our investigators and really their situations. It's interesting to note though that in order to truly help someone to make the covenant of Baptism, they need to be ready, and we are not perfect at doing that. But through the lord we can be guided to do what is needed to help them. So this week has been a week of true progression by figuring out what our investigators truly need.

The Hernandez family is doing well, but we are at a standstill to try to figure out what they really need right now. I'll let you know how they are doing as we keep working with them. The key that we are trying to find is family support.

David is still working with us to stop drinking, and each day brings a new challenge for him. But he is going for it! Keep praying for him! I'll let you know more as he keeps going as well. :)

Karina and Zulma are the best! We are trying to get husband support for them both as well. They love learning and studying about the gospel! And we love that they love to do that! They take studying to heart instead of just trusting us. And their testimonies are so strong of the book of Mormon!

Now this week we had an incredible miracle. We have been struggling for so long to get an investigator to church! And on Friday all of our plans and backup plans fell through in the first hour and a half. We really didn't know what to do. Then Elder Swinney said, "well last night I had a blue trailer come to my mind.." uh... ok. Where to go? Well we went to one of our three famous trailer parks (our 2nd home), and went to try a potential. We passed a bright blue trailer! We both knew it had to be it! We stopped by and said hi to the kids who were playing outside, and they went to go get there dad. He gave the typical answer to them to tell us he was busy. We were awkwardly standing only 15 feet away from them as he hid behind a tree and his animals. But we decided to yell out "buenas tardes hermano!" anyways! He peaked out, and came and talked to us. He was super duper nice! And it turns out he has met with missionaries before and really liked it! He was super excited that it was missionaries and wanted to come to church!

Now that's where we said, "well awesome, that'll be great to get him out to church after a few times of teaching him." But! He came to church two days later, and took a member home after church! Miracle!!! We were sooo excited!

I know that the Lord will work through us to touch the lives of those around us if we will simply listen, and write down what he tells us, even if it is a blue trailer!

 

I love you all! I hope that you have a great week, and truly don't forget to include the spirit in your week!

 

Elder Johnson

Hey again!

Well I talked to most of y'all yesterday haha, but hey again! I hope you enjoy the great pictures of my haircut! :D I also will send some pictures in this of the meeting with Elder Anderson. It was awesome to see Adam and Alicia there! Not to mention Elder Whatcott, Elder Hardy, and Sister Eastwood who all graduated with me! Sadly we didn't get that picture though.

But this week was a fantastic week! I'm super happy to be here another transfer with Elder Swinney! We have been able to make some great progress with our investigators this week. Sadly none come to church still! But! That will be fixed. Karina and Zulma are very excited to come to church and to be baptized, so eventually it will work out. 

Karina and Zulma really are some of the greatest people ever. The first time we taught them they were so quiet! Now they read everything that we leave with them, and ask such inspired questions! They are an awesome miracle.

Two new investigators from this week are Nancy and Andres. They are girlfriend and boyfriend, and the more we talk to them, the more elect they seem. We have been trying to talk to them for the past two months haha. We finally were able to actually teach them, and they really liked what we talked about! So we'll see where that goes. We get some pretty good tamales from her. :D

I love yall so much! It was so good to talk to yall yesterday and I hope this week is amazing!

Elder Johnson

Here's a few more pics...

Adam Hall, me, and Alicia Heninger. All from the same ward!

I admit, we look pretty awkward, but good :)

One last shot with "our dad"

And yeah.. :)

The "haircut"

I am not happy!

The "fix-up"

This is what happened to the back. Another elder was going to fix it with my electric shaver (a beard trimmer that has guards. It's a hammy down from an elder). So, using the largest guard, he was thinking that it would be fairly long. And he went for it! Haha! He made one swipe and went, uh-oh! We have been laughing the past week and a half about it. :D

Surprise!

Well this week we had some of the greatest experiences ever! First of all I have to say that we are working with so many amazing people! Now we just have to humble ourselves to become completely worthy of the spirit to direct us with the needs of each one of them. We are most definitely not perfect at this! This last week we found two more investigators who accepted baptism and even put a date for a goal! Their names are Karina and Zulma. They are sister-in-laws. They have relatives in the area who are less actives that we are just learning about, and are so great!

The Hernandez family is slowly moving forward. But they are moving. We have been having some struggles getting to the dad. We are praying hard to find the way we can serve him, and get to his heart. We feel that Alicia and the girls won't really be able to progress without his support. Pray for Antonio! :)

David is doing great! We are excited to do a church tour with a member we feel he will get along with really well.

Now the other amazing experience this week was that we were taught at the foot of three seventies and an apostle! Elder Parker, Pieper, and Martinez all came with Elder Anderson to a priesthood leadership meeting and then instructed us! Ah it was great! We got to shake their hands, and really through the whole meeting we got to feel the love of an apostle and the Lord. He really taught us the importance of understanding who Christ is, and how important it is that we put him and his gospel deep into our hearts, so that they can never escape. Truly that is what we ALL must do.

Now I have been thinking about that, and I think it goes really well with the Mighty Prayer that Marci talked about in her last letter. We have to pray, consistently pray, and work, work, work, to literally deepen our conversion, and lock the gospel into our hearts. I am excited to do that better and better day by day this week and the next, and forever. 

I know that this gospel is true! I know that the Savior loves us. I know that He lives. I know that He literally guides us through his apostles as he did in the New Testament. They will guide us the right way! And they are guiding us towards him.

I love y'all so much!
Elder Johnson